Monday, 2 June 2014

Every now and again, I’m just living life and the thought
catches up with me that my life here is drastically different from my old life
in the states. Honestly, most of the time I don’t even think twice about these
kinds of things now. But, when really reflect, it is kind of remarkable how
different my two worlds are! So, for all of my friends who are stateside, here
are a few snapshots from my week that remind me I’m not in Kansas anymore!

I rode in an auto rickshaw with 10 other people
across town and back, and no one even chuckled or made a reference to sardines…
not once.

My mirror on my scooter broke when a rouge cow
decided to take it out.

I went down to the veggie market and bought 6
kgs (roughly 14 lbs) of vegetables for under $3 USD.

There was a low of 83 degrees Fahrenheit one
night and I got cold. That’s the power of life without an air conditioner!

Random strangers want to hold my daughter and
take photos with her, and I let them and don’t even think it is weird.

Okay, don’t freak out, but we ride our scooter
with our baby. Not only is it legal, a scooter is considered a great vehicle
for a family of 4. So, we’ve got room for more!

A man brought his demon possessed wife to our
Sunday fellowship for healing and no one even blinked.

Everyone is going crazy for lychees because they
are only in season for a few weeks.

I passed two camels, a monkey, donkeys, one
elephant, and a white horse on my way home from the park.

Thursday, 20 March 2014

I’ve always liked school, mostly because there are a bunch
of right answers, and if you learn them you get rewarded with good grades.
Sometimes you even get a plaque or shout out in class or something. It is a
fairly controllable system. Go to class, learn the information, study, take a
test and all is well. Being the achiever that I am, I quickly got busy learning
and approached Aziza’s birth a bit like a university course.

After reading several convincing blogs, watching a
documentary or two, and reading a book, I was fairly convinced I had “the right
answers”. In all my wisdom gleaned from my studies, I decided that natural was
the only way to go. Why on earth
would I want to sabotage what is natural, after all? I typed out a highly official
looking birth plan that I gave to my doctor. I had done my studying, learned
the material. But, birth is not a science exam, as I would soon discover.

On December 29th, I woke up feeling a little funny. Tired, headache, nausea. I
had read the books, so I knew that some of these things are normal experiences
for the start of labor. Sure enough, by afternoon I started having
contractions. That day, I had gone with my family to see Red Fort in Delhi, so
we were in a crazy, old, congested part of the city. In the beginning, contractions were pretty easy, although the nausea was
heating up. When contractions set in about 20 minutes apart, we decided we’d
better catch the subway back to south Delhi so that we’d be closer to the
hospital. By the time we hit the subway station, I was feeling intensely
nauseated, but some 500 people (this is not a joke) were in line for tickets,
so I found a little open space by the stairs and started praying that I
wouldn’t throw up while I waited for Dustin to return with our ticket home. It
didn’t work, and I ended up projectile vomiting down two flights of stairs. I’ve
never seen a mob of people form a single file line so fast, all the while
staring at the hugely pregnant foreigner. It was pretty amazing.

(My mom and I on a rickshaw when the contractions were becoming more steady)

At this point, my brother pointed out to my mother that I had,
without a doubt, lost my mucous plug. He said he saw it on the stairs. Ha ha.
Anyhow, on the way home I called my doctor who told me to come to the hospital
ASAP for a checkup. So, around 7 pm I ended up at the hospital. They gave me a
little gown and put some clean sheets on the hospital bed. Not five minutes after
getting all settled in for a checkup, I began vomiting again. The little metal
kidney bean bowl they gave me wasn’t quite big enough, so some new covers and a
gown were required. Then, the fever and chills set in. Turns out I had the
stomach flu. Awesome.

After the check up, we discovered that while I was having
reasonably strong contractions I was only 1 cm dilated and 0% effaced BUT I
couldn’t go home because I was vomiting uncontrollably and had to be monitored.
Well, to make a rather long story shorter, 27 hours later, I was still vomiting
(and having some issues at the other end), having INTENSE back labor and
contractions roughly every 3 to 4 minutes, and had only progressed to 3 cms and
was 50% effaced. What the heck? At this point, they decided to use Pitocin to
help my body along. That made my back labor astronomically more intense. I was
loosing steam, and was starting to worry that I’d be too tired to push when it
came time. At this point, any normal person might start to think an epidural
was a good idea… ahhh, but remember, I had a birth plan!

(Me feeling more than a little exhausted)

My well informed, but now potentially unrealistic,
self-expectations for labor were hitting me like a freight train. The countless
blogs and books were running through my head reminding me of the million and
ten ways in which natural was best, how I could be putting my baby at risk by
doing anything “unnatural,” how natural was “normal” and basically anything
else was wrong. I seriously almost
had a meltdown, so my sweet husband and awesome mom prayed with me and read me
scripture. In that moment, I was struck by the realization that the
conversation surrounding natural child birth had really painted the picture
that those who choose an epidural or any kind of medical intervention are less
womanly, not natural, careless with their children, anything but brave/strong
and terribly uninformed. Those voices were drowning out the reality that having
an epidural while battling the stomach flu might very well be the best choice
for my baby and me. After we prayed, I felt free to release my self-expectations,
trust Jesus, and deliver Aziza with a little help. So, 28 hours into labor, I got
the epidural. And I am so, so glad I did.

(Me in post-epidural heaven, ha ha)

Aziza was born 8 hours after getting the epidural. I pushed
for the entire last hour. The effects of the epidural were much weaker at this
point, and I was actually able to push really well for someone who had an
epidural. But, her head would just crown and then pull back up. The doctor
realized something wasn’t right and called in a few other doctors. I could hear
them whispering about a potential emergency cesarean. About that time, Aziza’s
heart rate was dropping, and we lost power and were unable to get her heart
rate back. This is when my mom says that everyone in the room turned into
“little labor and delivery ninjas”. The power was cutting on and off while my doctor
did an episiotomy and two others jumped up on the table and pushed hard on my
stomach as I pushed through a contraction. It was by far the most painful thing
I have ever experienced… and that was with an epidural! As it turns out Aziza’s
umbilical chord was short (something the ultrasound technician missed), about
half the length of what it should have been. Her chord was holding her back. At
some point, possibly while they were pushing on my stomach, Aziza lost her
oxygen supply.

She came out. Blue. Limp. Silent. Doctors and nurses were
everywhere. There was a little huddle around Aziza, and they seemed to be
buzzing like bees. I kept asking if she was okay, and everyone would say,
“Everything is fine.” But she wasn’t crying, people looked tense and doctors
were giving terse orders. My husband’s face was white as a sheet. Never before
had life seemed so delicate, so fragile to me. After what felt like an eternity,
I heard Aziza sputter out a little cough. My mom held my hand and I just
bawled. She was alive! Pretty soon after she coughed, they set her on my chest
for about 30 seconds before whisking her away to the NICU. At this point, I
just passed out. I think it was God’s grace for me. My heart couldn’t handle
any more.

(My first time to hold her!)

Dustin went with Aziza to the NICU but they wouldn’t let him
stay, so he paced outside of the door until he heard her cry nearly an hour
after she was born. It is a cultural thing, but patients are given very little
information here. So, no one told us anything. We just had to wait. Three hours
after she was born, they brought her to us. She was pink everywhere except her
hands and feet. We just held onto her and to each other. The whole experience was
the scariest, most beautiful, overwhelming, tender, sacred time in my
life. So many emotions surfaced during her birth that I couldn’t even tell the
story without bawling until recently (she’s three months old now). I am utterly
overcome with how much I love her.

(Sweet Aziza on her second day of life)

When we got home from the hospital, I opened my email inbox
to discover that people around the globe felt led to pray for us at the exact
time things were becoming a little dicey in the delivery room.It was amazing. As I read email after email,
I wept. I was just overwhelmed at how God preserved Aziza’s life. This wasn’t a science exam. I didn’t have the
answers, or the power to achieve a perfect birth. But that didn’t matter,
because the One who has the answers and the power was there with me, with
Aziza.